The Acer Iconia One 7 is a very affordable Android tablet with a nice display, but some performance issues hold it back.

Amazon has established a dominant presence in the low-cost tablet market, but not everyone wants to be tied to its apps and services. The $79.99 Iconia One 7 (B1-780-K610) from Acer is an alternative, with a crisp 7-inch display, robust parental controls, and access to the Google Play store. That said, it suffers from issues with sluggishness and a profusion of bloatware, not to mention lackluster Wi-Fi range. It's a decent option if you want unrestricted access to Android apps, but Amazon's ecosystem is pretty robust, and the Fire HD 8 gets you better performance for the same price.

Design, Features, and Display

The Acer Iconia One 7 is a generic black plastic slate. Measuring 7.5 by 4.0 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and tipping the scales at 8.8 ounces, it's quite a bit lighter than the Amazon Fire 7 (7.6 by 4.5 by 0.4 inches, 10.4 ounces) and Fire HD 8 (8.4 by 5.0 by 0.4 inches, 13 ounces). That makes it easier to hold for a long period of time, but it doesn't feel quite as sturdy, which could be a concern if you're planning to give it to a child. The back is textured for a better grip, and you can always put a protective case on it.

There's a power button and volume rocker on the right side of the tablet. The top has a 3.5mm audio jack, a micro USB charging port, and an exposed microSD card slot that worked fine with a 256GB card. One downside for media use is that are no dual front facing stereo speakers like on the Fire HD 8. Instead you're stuck with a tinny, easily muffled mono speaker on the back.

The main attraction is the 7-inch, 1,280-by-720 IPS LCD, which is fairly sharp for the price. The 210 pixels per inch (ppi) here result in a denser picture than the panel on both the Fire 7 (171ppi) and Fire HD 8 (189ppi). The screen gets quite bright and viewing angles are decent, but it will wash out if you tilt it too much.

Connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. We tested the tablet on 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands in PC Labs, and recorded strong connectivity close to the router with a top speed of 56.3Mbps down. However, from a distance of 24 feet away, download speeds dropped to 17.2Mbps. At 36 feet the Wi-Fi disconnected, unlike the Fire tablets, which had no trouble holding a signal. PC Labs is full of network interference, so connectivity will likely fare better in your home, but it's worth keeping in mind, especially if your home network has some weak or dead spots.

Processor, Battery, and Camera

The Iconia One 7 is powered by a MediaTek MT8163 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, a slightly more powerful chipset than the MT8161 in the Lenovo Tab3 8. On the AnTuTu benchmark, a measure of overall system performance, the One 7 does better, scoring 36,497 compared with 25,407 on the Tab3 8. But that's only part of the story. Both slates have just 1GB of RAM, so while the One 7 performs smoothly enough for some light web browsing and watching videos, it starts chugging if you try to push it in terms of multitasking. It also can't handle demanding games without serious slowdown. You'll find the Fire HD 8 a better performer thanks to its 1.5GB of RAM.

See How We Test Tablets

According to Acer, the One 7 should last for up to six hours of use, but due its limited Wi-Fi range, we were unable to complete our standard battery test in which we stream full-screen video over Wi-Fi at maximum screen brightness. There's a 2,780mAh cell under the hood, which is smaller than many phones and half the size of the Tab3 8's 4,290mAh cell (which lasted 5 hours, 27 minutes), so it seems unlikely the One 7 will best it. Both Amazon tablets last around four and a half hours, so there are no big winners in this department.

There's a 2-megapixel rear and a 0.3-megapixel front camera, both of which aren't really worth using for more than video chat. This isn't unusual for the price range. If still image quality is important to you, the Tab3 8 has a 5-megapixel rear and 2-megapixel front camera, but the pictures still won't wow.

Software

The Iconia One 7 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The software is outdated, but without shelling out for an expensive tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3, you're not going to find a slate in this price range running Android 7.0 Nougat. The UI layer is minimal aside from the addition of Acer's custom news feed when you swipe left from the home screen. It lets you connect to various apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Opera Discover to generate content.

The one significant advantage the One 7 has over the Fire 7 and HD 8 is unrestricted access to the Google Play store. Both Amazon slates run Fire OS, a heavily customized version of Android that limits you to using Amazon's ecosystem of apps and services. It's fairly comprehensive, but it's not quite as open and far-reaching as Google Play.

The One 7 also has a Kids mode, in the form of an app called Kids Center. Launching it lets you set up a customized home screen with bright, kid-friendly colors and a set of automatically curated apps and games. Internet access can be restricted by enabling Safe mode, which blocks unapproved sites and apps. Extra Safe Mode and Kid Launcher disables the home button and locks the tablet in Kids Center even if it gets rebooted, so you can use the One 7 as a dedicated children's tablet.

In addition to Kids mode, the One 7 comes with 14 preinstalled apps and 5 shortcuts that take you to a Google Play download page. You can delete the shortcuts and uninstall half of the preloaded apps, but that still leaves you with just 7.44GB of storage out of the total 16GB. You can always use a microSD card if you need more space.

Conclusions

The $80 Acer Iconia One 7 is an affordable multimedia tablet that tries to take on offerings from Amazon, but falls short. Despite its fairly nice screen and ability to download apps from Google Play, the One 7 is held back by lackluster performance. The Amazon Fire HD 8 has more RAM and better Wi-Fi range. The Amazon Fire 7, meanwhile, isn't much faster, but costs $30 less. Neither has access to Google Play, but both are better values overall.

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About the Author

Ajay Kumar is PCMag's Analyst obsessed with all things mobile. Ajay reviews phones, tablets, accessories, and just about any other gadget that can be carried around with you. In his spare time he games on the rig he built himself, collects Nintendo amiibos, and tries his hand at publishing a novel. Follow Ajay on Twitter @Ajay_H_Kumar.

Acer Iconia One 7 (B1-780-K610)...

Acer Iconia One 7 (B1-780-K610)

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